Page - 77 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/02

76 | Benedikt Bauer www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/2, 67–79 gains “blood-righteousness”40 “because the blood of Christ steadily cries mercy, mercy”.41 This justification is granted out of the divine bridegroom’s love for his bride-to-be, described quietly and graphically in the following verses: Therefore, Lord Christ! my refuge is the cave of your wounds: when sin and death strait- ened me, I turned to them. … Therein I stay, whether body and soul are divided here: so I will be there with You, my shelter, in eternal joys, … You wanted to dress me up into yourself, clothe me in your innocence! That I, sanctified from sins, may last before God. … When will I get my dress that’s ready for me, my Lord and my God! My dress so white besprinkled with red. … Do you keep it for my eternal adornment? I need it right now, without the dress you don’t come into the blessed kingdom. … Now it is done, I get dressed: this is wanted by he who is called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.42 This passage again shows the forgiveness of sins within the wounds, and also in the use of the term “dress”. The motif of the wounds is extended through combination with the bridal status, for not only are the wounds imagined for contemplation but the bride is actually dressed into the wounds – with the apocalyptic white wedding dress washed in the blood of Christ: “Because I am now dressed with You, Lord Jesus Christ, so also the wedding dress is ready and prepared for me.”43 At this point the bridal mysticism imagines the break- ing of all barriers, even the corporeal determination of the self and the bodily and tactile barrier of the skin, by virtual interaction and virtual marriage. The individual perpetually imagines the virtual piercing through the corporeal bar- rier of Jesus Christ, to fulfill the wish for boundless intimacy. Therefore, the soul gets dressed up in its wedding dress, which is actually Jesus Christ himself, who breaks the imagined tactile barrier against the sinners by enclosing them with himself and permeates every strata of human immanence to unify with the bridal soul. The unio mystica evokes an internal transformation of soul and self and therefore transcends biological sex and transforms gender by converting brothers and sisters of the Moravian community alike into brides. The male participants in the Moravian community are constituted by their female soul even up to the point where Christian Renatus, the son of Zinzen- 40 Beyreuther 1978, Anhang, 6. 41 “[W]eil Christi Blut beständig schreyt, Barmherzigkeit, barmherzigkeit!”, Beyreuther 1978, Hirten-Lie- der, 107. 42 “Also, HErr Christ! mein zuflucht ist die höhle deiner Wunden : wenn sünd und tod mich bracht in noth, hab ich mich drein gefunden. … Darinn ich bleib, ob hier der leib und seel von einander scheiden: so werd ich dort bey Dir, mein hort, seyn in ewigen freuden, … In dich wolst Du mich kleiden ein, dein unschuld ziehen an! dass ich, von allen sünden rein, vor GOtt bestehen kan. …Wenn krig ich mein kleid, das mir ist bereit, mein HErr und mein GOtt! das kleid, das so weiss ist, besprenget mit roth. … Verwahrst du es mir zur ewigen zier? ich brauch es izt gleich, man kömt ohne kleid nicht ins selige reich. … Nun ist es gethan, ich ziehe mich an: das walt der es heisst, der Vater der Sohn und der Heilige Geist”, Beyreuther 1978, Hirten-Lieder, 36–37. 43 “Weil Du nun, HErr JEsu Christ! mir selbst angezogen bist, so ist auch das hochzeitkleid für mich fertig und bereit”, Beyreuther 1978, 85.